With the remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York City next week, I cannot help but remember my father, Ka Tino. Shortly after that historic New York bombing, he penned his piece, “Trahedyan Twins Towers” –the various community papers in North America had published his article. He was a self-taught poet;… Read More »
“I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.” Kazoo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun Laughter rang loud in the house whenever I was at home. My three young daughters liked to do that just to piss me in a playful way. Marla, the eldest at… Read More »
“For where is the justice in a country in which an individual has the freedom to be totally fulfilled, but where inequality denies him the means? And how can we call a society just unless it is organized in such a way as to give each his due, regardless of his state of birth, his means, or his… Read More »
“He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.” – Elie Wiesel, Night (1972, 1985) “We are all made of nouns, live by verbs, enlarge and entertain ourselves with adjectives and adverbs.” – Anna Quindlen, Write For Your Life (2022) I am an obscure writer… a writer of no consequence. I have been at it most of… Read More »
“Antsy for adventure, I consider other ways to transport myself. I settle on a tried-and-true escape hatch, accessible to anyone with an armchair: reading.” – Melanie D.G. Kaplan, “Find your literary getaway.” Toronto Star, April 25, 2020. “Reading is…going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship, an unveiling of new, incredible worlds. It’s living a life you… Read More »
“There are lots of things that do happen in life and lots that could, but you’re just left waiting for them. It seemed to me that more things I wanted were coming very slowly, and when they did happen it wasn’t the way I’d wanted and planned; they’d all taken too long, as if to annoy me, and… Read More »
“Lebensraum… is impossible without invading other countries or attacking other people’s possessions. Further successes can no longer be attained without shedding of blood. It is a question of expanding our living space…” – Hitler. “When at last the cat woke, the bunny asked her friend, who was much older, ‘Where do we go when we die?’ The cat… Read More »
“Sunny day…life’s so gay/Then suddenly…it goes away/Without a warning, lightning strikes/I’m heading for another lonely night/Cause I always get caught in the rain/It seems my heart stays in pain.” – Lyrics from the song, I Always Get Caught in the Rain, sang by Dionne Warwick. The Philippines, because of its unfortunate geographic location (referred to as the typhoon… Read More »
“Ah, my child, no one is listening to you, there is no use in crying. You will soon learn that you’re alone in this world! You too will be afraid…” – Marie-Claire Blais, A Season in the Life of Emmanuel (1939). “The sun’ll come out tomorrow/So you gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow/Come what may.” – Tomorrow from the… Read More »
“From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings!” – George Orwell, 1984. “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” The quotation was from a line in George Orwell’s novel 1984, the same book as… Read More »